Latest news with #Margolius
Axios
14-05-2025
- Health
- Axios
Cleveland smoking rates drop 30% over 10 years
Cleveland's smoking rates are down nearly 30% over the past decade, per a recent survey of 1,500 city residents. Why it matters: Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States, according to the CDC. State of play: Cleveland has some of the highest smoking rates in the country, and the city's Department of Public Health under director David Margolius has made smoking cessation a priority. Earlier this year, Margolius got a big win when City Council passed sweeping legislation to curtail illegal tobacco sales. What they're saying: "This is a sign that public health policy, when paired with community engagement and education, can create real impact," Margolius said in a statement. How it worked: CDPH and Case Western Reserve University mailed the survey to Clevelanders across the city's 34 neighborhoods last year. Findings are being released incrementally on a wide range of topics. What they found: Overall adult use of tobacco products has declined from 35% in 2015 to 25% in 2025. That's been driven by significant declines in cigarette use. Yes, but: Use of cigar products and vapes have increased over the same span. Between the lines: Increases in cigar use have disproportionately impacted Black residents — where the rate of cigar smoking is now equivalent with cigarette smoking (24%).
Chicago Tribune
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: 'The Da Vinci Code' at Drury Lane puts the complicated screenplay of the story on stage
On Good Friday at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace, Easter bunnies cheered up the lobby as the venue prepared for its famed holiday weekend brunch. Meanwhile, the theater was staging a show that (spoilers ahead) posited that Jesus of Nazareth may have borne a child with Mary Magdalene. Quite the disconnect. A trip from your seat to the concession stand was to pass through two entirely different worlds. In all seriousness, it's unlikely that 'The Da Vinci Code' will undermine anyone's faith. You'll likely recall the Dan Brown novel, imagining a vast conspiracy theory involving Leonardo Da Vinci, the Priory of Sion cabal and the Catholic organization known as Opus Dei, all in service of covering up the existence of an ongoing bloodline emanating from Jesus. Brown's mystery, which has sold some 80 million copies over the last 22 years, became a hit 2006 film with Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou and sparked much interest in its, ahem, alternative religious history. It begins with a murder in the Louvre Museum where Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of religious symbolism and iconography (played at Drury Lane by Jeff Parker) has run into a young cryptologist named Sophie Neveu (Vaneh Assadourian). Together, the pursued pair set out on a fantastical quest, which leads them to an eccentric Englishman named Sir Leigh Teabing, played by Bradley Armacost. Will he lead our heroes to the Holy Grail? How much will we care? Drury Lane's production is directed by Elizabeth Margolius, a genuinely talented visual stylist who can achieve wonders when paired with the right material. And, indeed, there are a lot of cool digital design elements here from set designer Scott Penner and projections maestro Joshua Schmidt. But this script is not a great match for Margolius' skills. It contains so much cascading plot that you can barely keep track of things, even without all of the additional visual accoutrements that mostly confuse, especially in the early stages, when surely unnecessary heavy French accents get in the way of comprehensibility. Things do get better as the show goes on and I admire the aims here, but this chilly show just doesn't gel. I suspect that Margolius wanted to genuinely theatricalize a script that basically just sticks the screenplay of the movie onto a stage and hopes audiences will follow along as the characters flit from place to place. But this uninspired text just cannot support what she is trying to achieve here. It's too pedestrian an adaptation from Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel. Margolius would have better going back to the novel and creating her own, had that been allowed. That said, if you are a fan of the novel or the film and want to be reminded of your experience, you'll likely enjoy at least some of this show, staged with an experienced cast. I'm something of a Da Vinci obsessive myself and I remember reading Brown's novel back in the day and being fascinated anew by this polyglot genius — an artist, futurist, tinkerer and thinker whose depths have yet to be fully plumbed. So there's that. The show does make you want to head to Milan to look again at Da Vinci's mysterious masterpiece. I did ask the Easter Bunny what he thought of these ritualistic nightly goings on, presumably within his earshot, but alas I got no response. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. cjones5@ Review: 'The Da Vinci Code' (2.5 stars) When: Through June 1 Where: Dury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes Originally Published: April 21, 2025 at 10:45 AM CDT
New York Times
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
NWSL's new docuseries focuses on players' competitiveness and passion on the field
The first docuseries about the NWSL playoffs is here just in time for the 2025 season. The new four-part series, For the Win: NWSL, green-lit by the league's organisers in February, was released in full on Amazon's Prime Video on Thursday. The series promised an immersive, behind-the-scenes look at teams' playoff runs during the 2024 postseason. The series did exactly what it set out to do. However, it now begs the question: what's next? Advertisement For longtime fans of the NWSL, the series relives some of the most thrilling highlights of the postseason. For new fans, it's a crash course on some must-know narratives heading into the upcoming campaign. It is especially prevalent on the eve of Friday's Challenge Cup, a rematch of last year's championship game between the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit with a trophy on the line. The series is a promising start but it caters more to the uninitiated. Following a private viewing of the film at the Paley Center for Media in New York City on Tuesday, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said that reaching new fans will be 'the theme of 2025.' 'You're going to see a lot of initiatives to give not just our current core fans but future fans, too, an opportunity to discover us,' Berman said during a Q&A moderated by former NFL quarterback Eli Manning, a Gotham FC minority owner, with Gotham defender Nealy Martin and the film's director, Marie Margolius. 'That was the whole strategy behind our media deal, and that is going to be what you're going to see manifest throughout this year, which is to see the NWSL and our players showing up in unsuspecting places.' One of those initiatives includes the league's 'Just Watch' marketing campaign launching next week. The idea for the docuseries came together last year, Berman said. At the time, the league was pitched by 'all of the top producers and directors' for projects about the NWSL, she said. The league realized the opportunity it had and eventually partnered with the production studio Words + Pictures for the series. Prime Video, one of the league's media rights holders, later agreed to carry the series. 'Telling (players') stories, both on and off the pitch, is the best way for us to make sure everybody knows who we are,' Berman said, 'and hopefully then drive them towards watching the games, because that's how we're going to grow the business and get these players paid what they're worth.' The docuseries is just one ingredient in a larger recipe to grow exposure for the NWSL. The hope is that the docuseries will pick up on the successful momentum from the first year of the league's historic four-year media rights deal, which includes ESPN, CBS, Prime Video and Scripps Sports. Advertisement Margolius, the series' director, was also a producer on Netflix's Under Pressure docuseries, which followed the U.S. women's national team during their World Cup run in 2023. In an interview with The Athletic before the premiere, Margolius described the new docuseries as a dream project, especially as someone who played collegiately at Harvard University and later professionally in Sweden. 'I played soccer my whole life. It was and is a huge part of my identity,' Margolius said. 'Getting to direct this project was, first of all, in so many ways, like a dream come true, but also really easy, because I've been a fan of the NWSL for so long.' Margolius even played against some of the players highlighted in the film, like Orlando's co-captain, Kylie Strom. The two crossed paths when Margolius was at Harvard and Strom at Boston University. While Margolius' background was valuable for the process, her goal was to make the players relatable to a wider audience, so she found ways to connect with them on a more personal level while leading the project. 'The thing that allowed me to lead the storytelling process was the ability to connect with the players on a human level,' Margolius said. 'We do a lot of sports storytelling. But we always say, it's actually not about the sport at all. The sport is the vehicle that moves the thing forward. But the reason these stories are so fun to tell and hear and see is the human stuff.' The series begins in Orlando five weeks before playoffs and concludes with highlights from this year's busy offseason and expectations heading into 2025. The series is, essentially, a snapshot of the highs and lows of last year's postseason, walking through the rivalries that were formed, including the Gotham-Spirit battle at Audi Field during the semifinals, and introducing the audience to a wide range of players, from Spirit's rising star Trinity Rodman and Orlando defender Strom to then-Gotham forward Lynn Williams, who has since joined Seattle Reign. Advertisement The series also explores the many retirements that happened in 2024, as many question who the next faces of the NWSL will be. Rodman was heavily featured throughout the series as one of those fresh faces. There is an awkward moment with Amazon product placement when showing that Rodman was named to the NWSL's Best XI of the month presented, of course, by Amazon Prime. For fans who followed the playoffs closely, the series can feel repetitive. That's where the unprecedented access behind the scenes comes into play, offering longtime fans little nuggets to hold onto. There are the constant jumps to interviews with soccer analyst Heather O'Reilly or Bay FC co-founder Brandi Chastain, who need no introduction. There are also glimpses into private moments, such as when the North Carolina Courage squad watched Orlando topple the Chicago Red Stars (now Chicago Stars), 4-1, in the quarterfinals. A player is overheard jokingly asking, 'Did Chicago not scout them?' There's also a scene where veteran players O'Reilly and Alex Morgan chat at Kelley O'Hara's retirement game at Red Bull Arena. Discussing retirement, they declared the eight-hour workday as way too long. (Relatable.) The series, however, only scratches the surface and leaves out the kind of context fans of the league are drawn to. There is a brief mention of disgraced ex-coach Paul Riley, for example, when the series delves into the Portland Thorns' historic dominance. While there is mention of the Sally Yates report and images shown from the player protests that followed reports published by The Athletic and Washington Post that exposed widespread abuse in the NWSL in 2021, not much else was mentioned about that period for the league. GO DEEPER NWSL's $5 million fund is 'necessary step toward accountability' after abuse scandal It seems that was on purpose, as Margolius said the series' creators made a conscious effort to keep the narrative strictly focused on the playoffs. 'While I certainly had an urge to be original and make this stand out in some way, I was even more conscientious of making sure that I was not changing the storytelling tactics just because it was women at the center of it,' Margolius said during the Q&A on Tuesday. 'So often when we cover women's sports, we tend to water down the competitiveness or the passion or the failure in lieu of very worthy stories, but stories of advocacy and family and the trials and tribulations of being a female athlete.' That's why, Margolius said, they leaned heavily into the grit and tenacity of the playoffs. That was potentially at the risk of being too linear for some fans. 'In this league, there are stakes and there are heroes and there are underdogs,' Margolius said. 'All the things you need for a great story.' Advertisement The series will certainly leave the viewers wanting more — either more access, more stories, or more narratives —but it also leaves room for there to be more. It's an interesting place for the NWSL, as it grapples with what the league's future will look like as it grows through more media exposure, high-profile investors and expansion. For Margolius, the hope is more stories will follow. 'Series like this will inspire more of this type of storytelling and in doing so, we'll grow the sport,' she said. 'That's the beauty of these types of series.'
